1.1.9-Kingedmundsroyalmurder
Brick!club day 9: of letters, submission, and casual sexism Right, so in this chapter we get to see the Bishop from Mlle. Baptistine’s perspective and I start to wonder whether Hugo is deliberately trying to undercut his own message via narrative choices. Clearly we are all getting increasingly irritated with the Bishop and considering him less wonderful than we did at the start, which seems to be the exact opposite impression from the one he’s trying to cultivate. Admittedly that could just be the barrier of time, since we’re reading this at a time when we both expect better of our media re: gender relations and also are accustomed to much, much faster pacing. (Though I suspect Hugo’s pacing is even slower than usual for the time, though I’m not familiar enough with the literature to know that for sure.) Anyway we get to read a letter from Mlle. Baptistine to a friend of hers and Hugo displays whole heaps of casual sexism, starting right in the very first paragraph when he talks about how women are by nature more timid and easily frightened than men. In the letter Mlle. Baptistine basically recounts what little plot we’ve had so far, including the discovery of the paintings in her bedroom and the trip into bandit-filled mountains. We also get to find out what the third upstairs room is, which is nice. Though I do have to wonder why she calls it a sitting room if it has no furniture. Telemachus, who is depicted in the paintings, is the son of Odyssius and Penelope and helps kill all Penelope’s suitors when Odyssius comes home from his extended trip. If there’s a symbolic reason for that particular character be depicted on Mlle. Baptistine’s wall I am either too tired or not cultured enough to pick up on it. I do have to wonder, after Hugo’s having spent the past two chapters decrying materialism, why he keeps focusing Baptistine’s character around the things she wants and can’t have. We’re now up to three pieces of furniture that she wants but can’t afford to buy. Is she meant to be virtuous for giving them up or not virtuous for wanting them in the first place? I do get a sense of exasperated fondness in her tone as she’s talking about her brother. She does seem to genuinely care about him and consider him to be the pinnacle of humanity and someone to be emulated in all aspects of life. She says she’s happy and I’m going to take her at her word on that because if Hugo’s not going to bother giving women agency I might as well let them keep what little they have. We’re told earlier that she spent her life being essentially saint-like, so potentially this isn’t the first time in her life she’s lived in such extreme conditions. I’d actually love to know what she was doing before her brother became Bishop, especially since I’m curious why she didn’t become a nun. She’s pious and good and unmarried, so what kept her out of the church? Social status? The Revolution? Some historical detail or convention I’m not aware of? I’m not sure what to make of the ‘when he dies I will too’ bit. The first time I read that I assumed it was a spiritual thing, i.e. her time will come when his does and she will have nothing more to do on this Earth therefore she will follow him peacefully into death, but most people here are interpreting it as a more material thing, i.e. when he dies there will be no more food. (Which does make me wonder how exactly she was expected to survive on those 500 francs a year. Also where they come from.) "Le diable peut y passer, mais le bon Dieu l’habite." (The devil may come the house, but the good Lord lives in it.) A while ago someone suggested that Baptistine may be the reason the Bishop found God in the first place and I have to wonder if that her parroting the Bishop’s worldview or if that’s her worldview that he’s taken for himself (and potentially made more extreme). So yes, problematic gender roles, at least viewed through the lens of our 21st century understandings of such things. I’m not exactly an unbiased voice here because I heartily detest all gender roles, and also I don’t know enough about the time period to know how typical Mlle. Baptistine’s utter submission is. (Also I have to wonder if the fact that she’s his sister rather than his wife makes any difference in her social standing/authority within the home.)